Herman Cain, center, is flanked by Rick Perry, right, and Mitt Romney, who was asked whether he would retain a chief executive facing character questions of the sort dogging Cain. Romney responded that Cain was the person to answer that.
(Scott Olson, Getty Images
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ROCHESTER, Mich. — Republican presidential candidates drew a bright line against government help for the private economy Wednesday night, whether it's to bail out the U.S. auto industry at home or ease a debt crisis in Italy that could threaten the world economy.

"Europe is able to take care of its own problems," said former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. "We don't want to step in and try to bail out their banks and bail out their governments."

"We are not going to pick winners and losers from Washington, D.C.," added Texas Gov. Rick Perry, summing up a broad consensus among the candidates in a debate here.

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The debate focused on the economy in an industrial state that has been in an economic slump for a decade, but it's more likely to be remembered for Perry's stumbling. He struggled Wednesday after he said there are three government agencies "when I get there that are gone." He named the Commerce and Education departments but couldn't come up with his own third target agency. After several tries, he gave up with a "Sorry. Oops."

Later, he said he had meant to cite the Energy Department.

The debate among eight GOP candidates at Oakland University, in suburban Detroit, was the first since accusations began to surface that businessman Herman Cain had engaged in aggressive sexual behavior toward four women in the past. He again flatly rejected all allegations, and won applause.

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"The American people deserve better than someone being tried in a court of public opinion based on unfounded accusations," he said, "and I value my character and my integrity more than anything else.

"And for every one person that comes forward with a false accusation, there are thousands who would say none of that sort of activity ever came from Herman Cain."

Romney, a former business executive, was asked whether he would retain a chief executive who faced questions of the sort dogging Cain.

"Herman Cain is the person to respond to these questions. He just did," Romney said. "The people in this room and across the country can make their own assessment."

The debate focused mostly on the economy, on a day when stock markets plummeted out of fears of a spreading debt crisis in Italy, the world's seventh-largest economy.

Pressed on the looming European debt crisis, the eight candidates sounded a similar refrain against any direct U.S. aid to stem it.

Romney said he would support international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund but would provide no direct aid to banks in Europe to stop the crisis from spreading.

Ron Paul said the U.S. should let debtors fail. "You have to let it liquidate," the Texan said. "If you prop it up, you'll do what we did in the Depression, prolong the agony. . . . You're going to perpetuate this for a decade or more."

Government bailouts of the auto industry were equally unpopular. Romney, whose father, George, was an auto-company executive and governor of this state from 1963 to 1969, has been under fire from Democrats for what appeared to be changing positions on government rescue of the auto industry during the 2008 economic collapse.

He said he would have preferred to let the auto industry go through bankruptcy reorganization on its own, rather than with taxpayer help and government direction.

"Whether it was by President Bush or President Obama, it was the wrong way to go," he said.

The candidates repeated long-held views on taxes and health care, though former House Speaker Newt Gingrich protested having to describe his plans to revamp health care in 30 seconds. Gingrich drew applause when he criticized media coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

"I have yet to hear a single reporter ask a single Occupy Wall Street person a single rational question about the economy that would lead them to say, for example, 'Who is going to pay for the park you are occupying if there are no businesses making a profit?' " he said.

Also participating in the debate were Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, former Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

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